Instead, the Vikings lost in week 18 to the Lions and were forced to settle for the No. 5 seed in the NFC. One 1st round road playoff loss vs LA later… and here we are. While we shouldn’t forget about the two-game losing streak that ended the Minnesota Vikings 2024 season, we can’t forget about all the successes either.

Context matters. Let’s not forget, the Vikings were projected to win only 6.5 games this season, and finished with 14. That’s the second-most regular season wins in franchise history. Time heals all wounds, after all… right?

Minnesota Vikings finalists for 2024 NFL Awards

On Thursday, voters for the annual Associated Press NFL Awards reminded us of just that when they named quarterback Sam Darnold (CPOY), head coach Kevin O’Connell (COY) and defensive coordinator Brian Flores (ACOY) in as finalists for separate categories of the 2024 NFL end of season awards.

Kevin O’Connell has been the leader in the clubhouse for NFL Coach of the Year, for most of the last two months. Thursday morning, sportsbooks removed odds for the 2024 NFL awards, upon the release today of the AP’s top 5 finalists for each category. When odds return for NFL COY, Assistant Coach of the Year and Comeback Player of the year, they will be added here.

Sam Darnold embroiled in NFL Comeback Player of the Year controversy

The one end of season NFL award that plugged-in pundits are watching this cycle is Comeback Player of the Year. Prior to the start of the season, AP NFL awards voters received a memo that seemed to set specific guidelines for CPOY voting; guidelines that did not help Sam Darnold’s chances of winning 2024 Comeback Player of the Year.

“The spirit of the AP Comeback Player of the Year award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury or other circumstances that led him to miss playing time the previous season.”

Associated Press senior NFL writer Rob Maadi

Essentially, the AP wanted to make the rule into one that focuses more on players returning from injury, not players like Sam Darnold — a former 3rd overall pick turned bust — who proved to be completely rehabilitated by throwing for over 4,300 yards, 35 TDs and 12 INTs.

Related: Vikings’ Rival Coaching Staff Decimated by 2025 NFL Coaching Carousel

Many fans and NFL media members believe the new voting guidelines for CPOY were put in place to assure Damar Hamlin wins this year, after he lost in shocking fashion last season to Joe Flacco.

Rumors behind the voting scene, however, indicate that many AP voters do not like the “spirit” of these new guidelines, leaving a real possibility that Darnold wins, despite the effort to keep him from it.

The AP continues to devalue their own awards by changing their standards year over year.

They made a MASSIVE and embarrassing mistake not naming Damar Hamlin CPOY last year.

Now they want to correct it this year? That's not how this works. You goofed, stay goofy.

— Hänsel (@UberHansen) January 23, 2025

Thanks to the incredible job head coach Kevin O’Connell has done molding this team and reinvigorating Sam Darnold, the Vikings have a >99% chance to make the NFL playoffs, with five games still remaining. Unfortunately… Vegas oddsmakers haven’t been paying attention, at least not in the NFL Coach of the Year Race, where KOC somehow ranks 2nd, behind Detroit’s Dan Campbell.

Kevin O’Connell somehow trailing in NFL Coach of the Year race

Campbell and his (11-1) Detroit Lions had their come-up year, in 2023, when they went 12-5 and won a playoff game. Hell, they missed their shot at the Super Bowl by three points. Then, they were picked to win the NFC North by a landslide. In other words, 2024 has gone pretty much as expected for the Lions.

Through the first 13 weeks of the 2024 season, Detroit looks like the best team in football. Their 11 wins are tied by only Kansas City, and they have throttled opponents on a weekly basis. That’s all great, but people expected this out of Campbell’s team, and anything less would have had fans questioning his abilities.

KOC is everything to the Minnesota Vikings’ success

The only surprise? That Kevin O’Connell’s 10-2 Minnesota Vikings are forcing the division champs to be pretty much perfect, or risk losing their division crown. The 2023 Minnesota Vikings finished 7-10, were third in the NFC North Division, and missed the playoffs. Then in the offseason, 6-year starting QB Kirk Cousins chased the money to Atlanta.

Related: Minnesota Vikings Open as Week 14 Favorites vs Kirk Cousins’ Falcons

So, KOC and his general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah signed Sam Darnold to a 1-year, $10 million bridge deal, before drafting J.J. McCarthy with the No. 10 overall pick a month later. Then, that top pick went down for the season with a torn meniscus, after one preseason game.

Despite that, Kevin O’Connell has the Minnesota Vikings at 10-2, thanks to the incredible job he has done in turning Sam Darnold’s career around. But apparently, it hasn’t been enough to beat out Dan Campbell, whose team has managed to meet its preseason projections.

We do not care what the narratives are.

All we want is 60 minutes.

Once a week, for however long they'll let us play. pic.twitter.com/VgJD7bFcyA

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) December 1, 2024

It’s fine to be happy for Dan Campbell and the historically inept Detroit Lions finding success. From a common sense standpoint, however, it’s difficult to make sense of where KOC’s COY odds currently sit.

Related: Sam Darnold Proved He’s a Legit QB1 vs Cardinals

The 2024 Minnesota Vikings are 7-1 in one-score games this year, and the head coach continues to push his team through all sorts of adversity. Kevin O’Connell coached a 13-win team during his first season in Minnesota, but this is a substantially more impressive result.

After digging themselves into an 0-3 hole (then 1-4), they’ve rattled off 5-straight wins and now sit in the middle of a wide-open NFC playoff race. Now, they have a wide open path to becoming just the 5th NFL team since 1990 to make the playoffs after losing their first three games of the season.

Kevin O’Connell for NFL Coach of the Year?

How much of the Vikings’ 2023 comeback story is thanks to their 2nd year head coach, Kevin O’Connell? We don’t know for sure, but there is a mounting pile of evidence pointing favorably in his direction. So naturally, people who matter around the league are starting to take notice.

Related: Vikings Think Kevin O’Connell Might be NFL’s Next Great Coach

On Monday, for example, one of the biggest NFL insiders in the game, Dianna Russini (The Athletic), tweeted that her obvious choice for Coach of the Year, right now, is Kevin O’Connell and that she “can’t be swayed”.

KOC is COY and I can't be swayed. #Vikings

— Dianna Russini (@DMRussini) November 13, 2023

KOC coaching out of his mind recently

The Vikings 5-game winning streak and rise from the dead, isn’t even the most impressive part of Kevin O’Connell’s 2023 coaching resume. The Vikings have won their last two games without starting QB Kirk Cousins, who was playing at an MVP level, before tearing his Achilles tendon.

Not to mention, Justin Jefferson has missed 4.5 games of their winning streak with a hamstring injury that we still do not know when he will come back from. Oh, and then backup rookie 5th rounder, Jaren Hall, went down with a concussion, trying to get into the endzone after an impressive 2nd drive of his first start.

Next man up again, right? Yup, even if that next QB up is a career backup — 28-year-old Josh Dobbs — who’s only been on the roster for three days and doesn’t know the names of most of his teammates.

No big deal, when your head coach is Kevin O’Connell. He just jumped onto the microphone and ran his new rocket scientist quarterback through each play pre-snap, as if he was operating a Madden offense until 15 seconds left on the play-clock, then letting the CPU take over.

Oddsmakers push O’Connell up COY betting boards

And it’s not just league insiders who are eyeing O’Connell up as NFL Coach of the Year. The oddsmakers are moving him up their boards, as well. At MGM, the Vikings head coach has the 4th-best odds of winning COY (+1000), according Sportsnaut.com, who sums up KOC’s 2023 performance pretty well.

Kevin O’Connell, Minnesota Vikings – Everyone wrote off the Vikings after they fell to 1-4 and Justin Jefferson landed on injured reserve. Yet, Minnesota kept winning. Then, Kirk Cousins suffered an Achilles’ injury in Week 8, surely that would be the nail in the Vikings’ coffin.

Nope. O’Connell isn’t just winning games with Joshua Dobbs, he has the career backup playing like a Pro Bowl quarterback and O’Connell’s hand-picked defensive coordinator (Brian Flores) is doing wonders with Minnesota’s defense.

Matt Johnson – Sportsnaut.com

Related: Josh Dobbs Magic Finally Fades but Vikings Hang on to Beat Saints

Minnesota’s 2nd-year head coach is far from perfect, but so far this season, O’Connell has proven an innate ability to connect with his players and keep a steady ship behind the scenes, even in rough waters.

On top of that, KOC has mostly lived up to his hype as an offensive mind and play-caller too, especially since Cousins and Jefferson went out with injuries. Can he keep the winning streak alive, now that he’s turned the ship around? That will likely be the deciding factor in whether or not O’Connell proves Russini right or wrong.